Change is happening quicker than you think

Outside of the personal injury claims world (and within it in many quarters) a highly significant change in legal practice is slipping in almost unnoticed. From 6 April this year, all personal injury claims arising from road traffic accidents, where the value of the claim is between £1,000 and £10,000, will have to be submitted and processed via a web portal funded and managed by the Association of British Insurers.

Strict time limits for responding to the claim, making offers of settlement and agreeing the same, or for submission to a district judge for assessment of quantum (which can be on the papers only) will be applied and fixed costs for each of the three stages of the process will be paid as each stage is completed. This is a gross over simplification of the process, but I want to give you the flavour.

Practitioners have been given scandalously short time to gear up for the structural and IT changes needed to be ready for the new system, not least because the regulations have not yet been published. This is very reminiscent of the lead up to the Woolf reforms, with regulations finalised only weeks before the implementation date, but at least on this occasion no one has had the temerity to choose April Fool’s Day again for the start date.

Leaving this gripe aside, the introduction of this process is, in my view, the biggest step yet in harnessing technology in shaping legal practice as predicted consistently by Professor Richard Susskind.

Although practitioners will be able to enter data manually on the portal, an interface will be available to enable case management databases held by firms to talk directly to the portal. Claims have to be formulated in a set way, with even medical reports required to comply with a template of required data.

Turnover of cases completed within this process will be much shorter than the current average and, although claimant solicitors will be paid less for their work, the entire process lends itself to delegation away from highly qualified staff for those parts of the job that do not warrant it, and computerisation where human input is unnecessary – that is if the claimant firm wants to make a profit.

The Ministry of Justice has not ruled out a future introduction of a computerised tool for assessing general damages, so not only will there be litigation conducted by one case management application talking to another, but the outcome itself could at some point be decided by computer.

It does not take a latter day Nostradamus to predict that this new process will pave the way for more cases to fall within its scope. Expect all road traffic fast-track claims to be embraced and for the regime to include claims arising from accidents at work and public liability claims. It is but a short step too to move into other areas of dispute resolution not involving personal injury claims.

Stop scanning the horizon to see what the future will bring. It is here. Now.